Happy Holidays!!! After almost a year's lapse, I am finally able to update this website again. Hopefully you haven't given up on it entirely. The new Facebook page is still the best source of "new stuff." But this page and the whole website will get better in 2013. Dec 28, 2012.

RBA and "Collective Impact" Deitre Epps' paper shows how RBA can be used to address the five conditions of collective success set out by Kania and Kramer in their Stanford Social Innovation Review article.

RBA/OBA Facebook Group taking a new turn: Beginning on Jan 16, 2012 (Jan 17 for AU/NZ), we will begin using this facebook page as a combiation of Mark's blog and RBA/OBA discussion site. Check out the full message, and sign up to participate or just watch. January 2012

Expanding the Evidence Universe: In a new paper just released by the Center for the Study of Social Policy, authors Lisbeth Schorr and Frank Farrow argue for a much broader conception of evidence considered allowable in funding decisions by government and philanthropic agencies. The legitimate focus on funding evidence-based practice has led to an over-reliance on experimental design as the only legitimate source of knowledge about what works. This has limited our vision of what programs and strategies should be funded and diminished our chances of making a difference at scale on outcomes for children, families, and communities. The paper presents very specific recommendations for changes in policy and practice for funders and for the research and evaluation community. The paper also urges use of results-based planning and decision-making processes, as central components of community change and system change initiatives. Please consider taking an active role in promoting this paper within your professional network. Download the paper. 

Peel Ontario produces new quality of life report and data base: Congratulations to all the partners!
December 2011.

What's Wrong with Logic Models, by Phil Lee, published by the Local Community Services Association (LCSA), New South Wales, Australia. Thanks to LCSA director, Brian Smith. (See Parody of a Logic Model below)        August 2011

Outcomes UK Turning The Curve Newsletter
Volume 1 Number 1 Summer 2011
Featuring articles by Rob Hutchinson, Andrew Cozens and David Burnby. Thanks to Editor Steve Pitt!
August 2011

Research Publications about RBA
1. Thought Exercises on Accountability and Performance Measures at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), Michael S. Lauer MD, Circulation Research, 22 February 2011. 
2. Connecting Data to Action: How the Santa Cruz County Community Assessment Project Contributes to Better Outcomes for Youth, Deanna Zachary, Susan Brutschy, Sue West, Tracy Keenan, Abigail Stevens, Applied Research in Quality of Life, The International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, 11 June 2010
3. Evaluation of Results Based Accountability, Chronic Conditions Management Demonstrators Evaluation Report, Opinion Research Services, Cardiff, Wales, May 2011

Next Generation Contracting 2.0
An approach to Flexible Funding and Integrated Outcome-Based Contracting, Presented in Australia and New Zealand RBA workshops           June 2011

Check out the new 7 minute video.
Thanks to Justin Miklas.   
Jan 2011

Diana Urban named 1 of 7 Public Officials of the Year by Governing Magazine: Cites RBA as key to her work on budget reform in Connecticut. Click here for the whole interview. And check out the election story in The Day: "Urban, accountability are both winners."    
Nov 2010

RBA recognized in Victoria State award Congratulations to the Inner East Community Health Service and Melbourne Citymission for their award from the State of Victoria for Innovation in the Nonprofit / Community Sector. Both agencies have been using Results-Based Accountability™ (RBA) to develop outcomes frameworks for their respective services.  This award is due to recognition of the importance of RBA in challenging the traditional assumptions of organisational and consumer accountability. View video       September, 2010

RBA/OBA Licensing Fee Requirements for consultants: Applicable to for-profit consultants with gross revenues in excess of US$ 500,000 per year.  Click here for details.  August 2010

RBA/OBA Implementation Self-Assessment
The Results Leadership Group has released an excellent poster sized implementation checklist. Click on this link f more information. Thanks to Justin Miklas and Dave Hirsch.                       May 2010

United Way Testimonials about RBA
Many United Ways in the US and Canada are finding RBA to be a powerful way to organize community impact work, strategic planning and grantee performance accountability. Read comments from leading United Way senior staff.

RBA Practitioner Conferences
Australia: December 2009: 200 RBA practitioners from across Australia and New Zealand gathered in Sydney for the first Australasian RBA conference. The conference was sponsored by Creating Links and NSW Family Services (FamS). For more information go to the FamS website. 

Connecticut: September 2009: Over 100 RBA practitioners from across the State gathered in Hartford to share experiences implementing RBA. The conference was sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and The Charter Oak Group, LLC and attracted participants from state agencies, communities, and philanthropies.  Mark Friedman gave the keynote address, and a panel of four legislative leaders talked about how the legislature’s five-year project to bring RBA to the state budgeting process.  As follow-up to the conference, a CT RBA Practitioners Network was formed with over 60 members. To view the first meeting of the Practitioner's Network, click http://ct-n.com/ondemand.asp?ID=4970.  For more information, contact bpudlin@charteroakgroup.com.

RBA and ABCD This paper by Dan Duncan, Senior Vice President, United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona shows the powerful ways in which RBA and Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) methods can be used together.  ABCD is one of many other bodies of work that fit well with RBA/OBA. Another example is the work of Jim Collins in "Good to Great."                 January, 2010

OBA Use in the UK: Ageing Well in Dorset: How not to be invisible: by Robin Cowen (cowen.robin@googlemail.com): An excellent new report on the use of OBA for improving ghe well-being of older people, published in the Journal of Integrated Care, December, 2009. Here's the paper's abstract: "Dorset County Council and partners commissioned a project in 2008 to develop a plan for ageing well in the county that engaged and involved older people. The completed plan has since been supported by Cabinet and the Local Strategic Partnership. The project was carried out using Outcome-Based Accountability (Friedman, 2005), a methodology for focusing on outcomes, and this article describes how it worked to support this strategic development in adult services at a time when it had been in much more regular use in children's services." January 2010

RBA/OBA Ideas This space is intended to help support the worldwide community of Results-Based Accountability (RBA) and Outcomes-Based Accountability (OBA) practitioners. It's a place for Mark to share notes on a daily, weekly or monthly basis that might be of interest. It replaces the Google blog site which never worked very well and is now discontinued. Your comments and suggestions for subjects are welcome. Recent topics include:
    - Measures are categorized on the basis of what question they answer.
    - Creating results culture change
    - Measuring the success of population level strategies
    - Next Generation Contracting - Key Provisions                    January, 2010

OECD 3rd World Forum: The OECD 3rd World Forum was held in Busan, Korea, October 27 - 30, 2009. Much of the conference focused on the challenge of how to measure quality of life, and then use those measures to drive policy. One parallel session included a presentation of the basics of RBA. Click here for copies of papers, powerpoint and selected web links.   October, 2009

Parody of a Logic Model: This is very funny and I wish I knew who created it. A paper is in the works on "The 5 Things Wrong with Logic Models (and why everyone hates them)."  Here's a preview: 1) They start in the wrong place with means not ends. 2) They restrict rather than expand people’s thinking. 3) They assume life is linear and causality can be clearly explicated. 4) They take a lot of time and paper. 5) They are not useful.  RBA is a much more complete framework, and much easier to understand and use.         September 2009
Check out DOD logic model      May, 2010 

Next Generation Contracting Provisions:  Traditional contracting (or "commissioning" methods work OK when applied to buying units of service (How much did we do?) and quality of service (How well did we do it?). But these methods break down when applied to customer results or outcomes. Here's a description of the content of key provisions of next generation contracts. Click here.        April - August, 2009

Trying Hard Is Not Good Enough:  New lower prices:
 Amazon: $18.95        RLG: $16.95 RLG: $16.95     
 A new publishing arrangement with Booksurge.com allows a reduction in the retail cost from $24.00. Ordering from the Results Leadership Group is the better deal. The book can still be ordered from Trafford at the higher price, so be careful when placing orders through book stores.                                                        June, 2009                  

A new software platform for implementing Results-Based Accountability™ and linking agency performance measures to community indicators: Developed by the Results Leadership Group with technical partner Insightformation. Click here for more information.         April, 2009

UK: OBA 101 Workshop WORKBOOK Version 1.9  
(49 pages) This is the document used in all OBA 101 Workshops. Click here for a description of the changes.          April, 2009

New Zealand: Results-Based Accountability™ reaps rewards in Hawkes Bay: When Pam McCann made the move from Child, Youth and Family Services to managing Family Works Hawkes Bay, she wanted to find a way of better expressing what they were trying to achieve and what a difference they were making.   The opportunity to attend a Results-Based Accountability™ (RBA) workshop hosted by Family and Community Services (FACS) provided her with the solution. Read the full story. (Ministry of Social Development, Family and Community Services Newsletter, March, 2009)

Montgomery County, Ohio releases it's 10 Year Progress Report. Partners in Montgomery County have been using RBA for 10 years to assess the well-being of the people who live in their community and plan actions to make things better. One of their turn the curve success stories is featured in Trying Hard Is Not Good Enough (p. 123). This year's report includes a congratulatory note from Mark Friedman.
                                               March, 2009

RBA Implementation Self Assessment: This tool provides a more comprehensive look at what it means for a government or nonprofit organization to implement RBA. The new assessment covers language discipline, population accountability and performance accountability and allows a score to be computed. This is still a work in progress and comment are welcome. Note: there is a correction to the version of this released with RBA 101 workshop materials 1.9. Click here for more information.  February, 2009

NSW Family Services Performance Report (NSW, Australia)
The report includes an excellent set of performance measures, an honest assessment of the story behind the numbers, an action plan, plus a Data Agenda, Research Agenda and Policy Agenda. February, 2009

RBA 101 Workshop WORKBOOK Version 1.9  
(53 pages) This is the document used in all the RBA 101 Workshops. Click here for a description of the changes.          January, 2009

OBA Master Class in London on 5 November brought together 160 OBA practitioners from across the UK. Speakers included Mark Friedman, Dame Gillian Pugh, Christine Davies, Rob Hutchinson CBE, Jacky Tiotto, Dr. Andy Gill, Dr. Jocelyn Parry and Steve Pitt. The event was sponsored by the IDeA, and can be viewed in its entirety, including all of the powerpoint presentations at the Local Government Association website.                       November, 2008

Five New Powerpoint Slide Sets that can help you teach and use the concepts of RBA/OBA
1. RBA in a Nutshell: One page containing the most important innovations in the framework. Click here for the OBA version.
2. RBA the Journey Analogy: One page slide that shows how RBA goes from report cards to action plans to the end of turned curves. Click here for the OBA version. (See this presented at minute 51 of the London Master Class.)
3. RBA/OBA Star Exercise: A fun way to teach the concept of ends vs. means.
4. Cutting Budgets with RBA (OK, the fun's over): These slides show the progression from Generating cut ideas, to Analyzing cut ideas to Deciding what to cut. Each section displays both traditional methods and RBA additions. OBA version  (NEW version 4)
5. Turn the Curve (TTC) Debriefing Questions: the questions used in RBA/OBA 101 to discuss lessons learned from the Turn the Curve Exercise - for use by trainers, coaches and facilitators.
                                                           November/December, 2008

Montgomery County, Maryland: Healthy and Sustainable Communities Initiative and Website  The website provides an excellent example of how to use RBA methods to improve environmental quality of life, and illustrates a dynamic way of using the RBA framework to gather community and expert input. June, 2008

Turning the Curve Stories: UK Department of Children, Schools and Families releases report on Outcomes-Based Accountability by researchers David Utting, Alison Painter and Judy Renshaw. Turning the Curve Stories describes the principles of the Outcome Based Accountability (OBA) framework for planning and taking action to improve the quality of life and outcomes for all children (and other populations) and to improve the performance of specific services, agencies and service systems. The resource is accompanied by a series of England-wide case studies, illustrating how the approach has been applied.  June, 2008

The Autumn, 2008 issue of LCSA's quarterly publication Local devotes 25 pages to "A Conversation with Mark Friedman" about implementation of Results-Based Accountability. The Local Community Services Association is the peak body for 300 New South Wales neighbourhood and community centres. June, 2008

SEVEN NEW RESULTS-BASED ACCOUNTABILITY™ SUCCESS STORIES February 4, 2008

1. Turning the curve on 16 to 18 Year Olds Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) in Newcastle, UK:  Sara Morgan-Evans, Local Connexions Manager in Newcastle, UK describes her team's multi-year success using Outcome Based Accountability, working with other partners, to produce a significant reduction in this important measure of youth disengagement.

2. Turning the curve on Positive Youth Shelter Discharges from the Spectrum Youth and Family Services Homeless Shelter in Burlington, Vermont: Trine Bech, authored this paper summarizing the exceptional work of the shelter staff and residents using Results Accountability methods to turn a declining trend in rate of positive exits for young people from the shelter. A key to their success was involvement of the youth themselves.

3. to 7. Turning Curves, Achieving Results: Five Annie E. Casey Foundation Fellows (Craig Levine, Molly McGrath, Brenda Donald, Dennis Campa and Yolie Flores Aguilar) describe their successes using Results Accountability to measurably improve the well-being of children and families in Essex County, NJ, Chicago, IL, Washington, DC, San Antonio TX, and Los Angeles County, CA. Don't miss the inspiring introduction by Molly McGrath.

The Results-Based Accountability™ 101 DVD This is the official video of Mark Friedman's acclaimed Results Accountability 101 workshop. Special features include a Q&A session with Mark and instructions on how to set up and run the population and performance Turn the Curve Exercises. View a clip and order the video at ResultsLeadership.org/sales    July, 2007

The Netherlands Workshop Page: RBA 101 Powerpoint and workshop materials in Dutch  A complete set of workshop materials translated for use in The Netherlands. Thanks to Ordina for supporting preparation of these materials.  November, 2007

The UK Workshops Page: Outcomes-Based Accountability™
A complete set of materials specially adapted for use in the UK. Included are both the workshop workbook handout as well as two versions of the OBA 101 Powerpoint presentation.  October, 2007

Results-Based Accountability™ ranks better than Logic Model, Balanced Scorecard and Six Sigma on complexity of language and readability.
It is hard to find objective evidence that one management, planning or budgeting framework is easier to use than another. Most of what's out there is anecdotal at best and usually pure self promotion. In the interest of honesty, this site is about promoting Results Accountability as the best available framework. The attached analysis shows that the Results Accountability book, Trying Hard Is Not Good Enough, is significantly better than leading books on Logic Model and Balanced Scorecard, and Six Sigma, when it comes to complexity of language and readability. The field needs a serious comparison of frameworks by a Consumer Reports type organization. But in the mean time, this comparison sheds light on some of what you need to know to make an informed choice.       March, 2007

What you need to know about Privatization: When government-delivered services are contracted out to for-profit and/or nonprofit providers, it is called “privatization.” While this method has been part of the government landscape for many years, elected officials and government managers often don’t know the basics of when privatization is appropriate and how to make it work. This short paper gives you a candid summary of what you need to know.   February, 2007

The End of the Melting Pot and the Challenge to Create a Healthy Multi-cultural Society
A short essay suggesting that Results Accountability methods could be used to structure the discussion of how to create a healthy multi-cultural society, neighborhood by neighborhood and city by city.                           April, 2006

Responsabilidad Con Los Resultados Para Las Comisiónes Prop. 10 Guía de Planeación  Para Mejorar el Bienestar de Niños, Jóvenes y sus Familias, Traducción por Patricia Zuluaga June, 2004